Beside Still Waters Ministries

Definitions of Christian Worship

Because Dr. White quotes several other scholars in this section, I am simply going to list the quotes that I found important or interesting. Also, listing these scholars and books will later be helpful for me to know what I should add to my library.

Prof. Paul W. Hoon The Integrity of Worship, 1971
Emphasizes the Christological center of Christian worship, and believes that it is bound directly to the events of salvation history. The “core of worship is God acting to give his life to man and to bring man to partake of that life.” The Christian life is a liturgical life. “Christian worship is God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and man’s response.” It is a twofold action: that of “God to the human soul in Jesus Christ and in Man’s responsive action through Jesus Christ.” Through his Word, God “discloses and communicates his very being to man.” Key words are “revelation” and “response,” and at the center of both is Jesus Christ. (pg. 26)

Peter Brunner Worship in the Name of Jesus, translated from German by M.H. Bertram 1968
Parallels Hoon’s thinking, and “has the advantage of using the German word for worship Gottesdienst, a word that connotes both God’s service to humans and humans’ service to God.” He speaks of the “duality” of worship, but it is important to remember that God alone makes worship a possibility. “The gift of God evokes man’s devotion to God.” Brunner quotes Luther, who says of worship “that nothing else be done in it that our dear Lord Himself talk to us through His holy Word and that we, in turn, talk to Him in prayer and song of praise.” Brunner says that “prayer is the permission which God accords His sons to join their voices in the discussion of His affairs.” So, the duality of worship is overshadowed by a single focus, the activity of God both in self giving to us and also in prompting our response to God’s gifts. (pg. 26-27)

Prof. Jean-Jacques von Allmen Worship: Its Theology and Practice, 1965
Also agrees with the Christological basis of Christian worship, and makes a strong case for understanding Christian worship as the recapitulation of what God has already done. “Worship sums up and confirms ever afresh the process of saving history which has reached its culminating point in the intervention of Christ in human history, and through this summin-up and ever-repeated confirmation Christ pursues His saving work by the operation of the Holy Spirit.”  ”Worship is the epiphany of the Church,” which “because it sums up the history of salvation, enables the Church to become itself, to become conscious of itself and to confess what it essentially is.”

 White summarizes, “worship is both threat of judgement and promise of hope to the world itself even though secular society professes indifference to what Christians do when they assemble.” Christian worship has three key dimensions: recapitulation, epiphany, and judgement. (pg. 27-28)